🕐29.01.13 - 01:54 Uhr

HIGHLANDS PACIFIC LTD [ASX: HIG] - QUARTERLY ACTIVITIES REPORT - 31 DECEMBER 2012





Fortbridge Media Release

Highlands Pacific Ltd [ASX: HIG] - Quarterly Activities Report - 31 December 2012

Highlands Pacific (ASX: HIG) has released its quarterly report for the three-month period ended 31 December 2012.

Highlights:

Frieda River Copper Gold Project (18.18%)
� Feasibility Study (FS) and Extended 2012 Study documentation delivered by Xstrata Copper in late December 2012.
� Project identifies a multi-decade open pit mine with 304ktpa copper and 451k ozpa gold in first 5 years at a C1 cash cost US71 c/lb copper using US$1,500/oz gold price.
� Capex of US$5.6bn based on 50-60Mtpa plant and 1.29:1 strip ratio with a payback of capital of only 3.2 years at recent copper and gold prices.
� Highlands and Behre Dolbear Australia reviewing in more detail at present for agreement conformance.
� Next steps proposed by Highlands include discussions between Frieda Joint Venture Participants and PNG Government to determine equity ownership, partnering, permitting and development timeline.
� Frieda River district contained copper inventory stands at 12.9 Mt of copper, 20.4 Moz of gold and 49 Moz of silver.
� Highlands� share of expenditure from January 2012 is carried by Xstrata Copper under a funding loan arrangement through to the lodgement of a Special Mining Lease application.

Star Mountains � Copper Gold Porphyry Exploration
� New discovery at the Kum Kom prospect � skarn-style alteration intersected. 68 meters grading 0.97% copper and 0.37g/t gold and 22 meters grading 1.42% copper.
� Three licences covering 353sqkms, approx 25kms from the Ok Tedi Mine.
� 2012 exploration spend of US$10 million.
� Two rigs on site with 2,328 metres drilled for the quarter
� Of 17 identified copper-gold targets, seven preliminary drilled.

Ramu Nickel Cobalt Mine (8.56% with potential to move to 20.55%)
� Official opening by the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea in early December.
� Maiden shipment loaded in November containing 217 tonnes of nickel and 19 tonnes of cobalt in 576 (dry) tonnes of mixed nickel cobalt hydroxide intermediate product.
� Load commissioning continued during the quarter. Third and final autoclave to be load commissioned in early 2013.
� Ore mined to year to date 1,547,000 tonnes (wet). Ore transported to treatment plant year to date via 135km slurry pipeline 647,000 tonnes (dry).
� Year to date approximately 13,777 tonnes (dry) of mixed nickel cobalt hydroxide intermediate product produced to end of December 2012 containing approximately 5,283 tonnes of nickel and 469 tonnes of cobalt.

Wau-Bulolo Exploration - Yangalemu and Kobiak prospects
� Results from six week field program undertaken at the Kobiak gold prospect in June quarter were anomalous for some pathfinder elements but none of the samples returned gold grade >0.5 g/t.

Corporate - A$14m in Cash Reserves, no debt:
� Cash reserves as at 31 December 2012 of A$14 million.

Comments by Managing Director John Gooding; �By any measure the December quarter was one of significant achievements for all three of Highlands� major projects and investments. We witnessed the official opening of the Ramu Nickel Cobalt mine, the delivery of the Frieda Feasibility Study and 2012 Extended Study documents, and the receipt of some fantastic copper-gold assays from Star Mountains. During 2013 we will hold discussions with Xstrata Copper and the PNG Government on a development path and partnership options for Frieda, and in coming months we will be assessing the Star Mountains results.

Please see the attached announcement for more details.

For further information, please contact:

John Gooding
Managing Director
or
Craig Lennon
Chief Financial Officer

Telephone: 07 3239 7800

MEDIA & INVESTOR RELATIONS ENQUIRIES:

Fortbridge Consulting: + 612 9003 0477

Fortbridge / Sydney
Tristan George
Mobile: +61 407 218 832
Email:

Fortbridge / Hong Kong
Christine Wootliff
Mobile: +852 908 723 27
Email:

Fortbridge / Singapore
Pierre Mas
Mobile: +65 9817 1017
Email:

Fortbridge / 中国市场及中文咨询
Isabella Kou
手机:+61 425 567 931
邮件:

Fortbridge / London
Matt Beale
Mobile: +44 (0) 7966 389 196
Email:

Fortbridge / Фортбридж
Marina Trusa
Телефон: +61 404 330 634
E-mail:

Fortbridge / New York
Luke Dean
Mobile: +1 310 210 7696
Email:

Fortbridge / Toronto
Rodney Ireland
Mobile: +1 647 704 9054
Email:








Products & Services | Jobs